Associated Press Article

Solution for a disaster? House in a box, maybe

By ALAN SAYRE, AP Business Writer

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ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND EDITIONS APRIL 21-22 – In a Thursday, April 5, 2012 photo, the REOSE Sunshower SSIP house is seen in New Orleans. The house is meant to go up quickly after disasters and then serve as permanent housing that can withstand future calamities. It’s designed to be environmentally friendly, survive outside damaged utility grids and can be shipped in pieces in a single container and assembled like an erector set. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — In one of the neighborhoods hit hardest by flooding in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, developers have built a prototype house that’s aimed at providing a quick housing solution for areas blown away by hurricanes and tornadoes or knocked down by earthquakes.

The dwelling in the Lakeview section of New Orleans is somewhat box-like, with a roof that slants inward and an arched structure in front that forms a covered front porch. But style isn’t the purpose of the house that’s meant to go up quickly after disasters and then serve as permanent housing that can withstand future calamities. It’s designed to be environmentally friendly, survive outside damaged utility grids and can be shipped in pieces in a single container and assembled like an erector set.

The house is the first of its kind, but its designers believe that there could be demand for tens of thousands of them in areas around the world that need to quickly rebuild after disasters.

The arch serves as the mount for 22 solar panels and the inward-slanting roof catches rainwater, all with the goal of making the house independent of disaster-damaged electricity and water systems. Its walls are steel structural insulated panels — two sheaths of steel with a polystyrene core — best known for their use in walk-in refrigerators. The walls are erected on a system of heavy-duty tracks and supports, and tested to withstand winds of 156 miles per hour. Without wood, of course, they are quite unappealing to termites.

“This building can be put in a disaster area without infrastructure, but it is permanent and can be expanded,” said Joseph Basilice, president of OceanSafe LLC, which produced the panels for the home.

After years of disasters, they believe the market is there.

“We’re trying to make this a mass-production concept,” said Richard Dupont, estimating manager for Woodward Design + Build, the house’s construction manager. “You could sell them in onesies and twosies, but we want to sell them by the thousands.”

Basilice said the durability of the steel panels already has been proven. “After Hurricane Andrew, the only thing left standing was the walk-in coolers,” he said.

The house comprises about 1,100 square feet in a one-story living area featuring two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a great room and a kitchen. Its air conditioning system has individual room units with individual thermostats connected to a quiet outdoor compressor.

When it rains, water flows down the slanted roof into a 4-foot opening, collects in a cistern and then flows into a 6,000-galllon accumulation bladder. In New Orleans, rainwater can only be used for irrigation, although restrictions vary across the country, Basilice said.

Basilice said a filtration system could be used to make rainwater potable for almost any purpose.

“In many parts of the world, that’s how people gather their water,” said Judith Kinnard, an architecture professor at Tulane University, who, with fellow professor Tiffany Lin, designed the house. “Water is going to be an increasingly scarce resource worldwide.”

The solar panels are designed to handle the house’s routine power needs. It can also be fitted with a turbine to generate electricity in windy regions. The outside of the walls is composed of a cement fiberboard that resists moisture, Kinnard said.

About 14 weeks are required to put the house together, about the same time required for the building of a non-custom standard home, said C.J. Minor, co-owner of C&G Construction, which donated the land and served as general contractor.

Christophor Faust, managing partner a company called The Regen Group that specializes in green building techniques, said many ideas for the house started after Katrina when New Orleans-area builders were working with actor Brad Pitt’s Make It Right rebuilding project. During that period, designers submitted entries for rebuilding houses in the city.

Faust’s group lost in the finals and “after that, we decided to design a sustainable housing kit that could be shipped into a disaster area,” he said.

Faust said the group also wanted to provide employment for construction craftsmen in disaster-hit areas, something that bringing in portable trailers doesn’t do.

The house comes in a single container — transportable by truck, rail or ship — meets the toughest fire resistance codes and has walls that have been certified to withstand winds of up to 156 miles per hour, Faust said. Testing was performed in the “tornado cannon” at Texas Tech University.

There are only a few windows. Each is covered with a snap-on mesh that has been shown to repell a wooden plank hurled at 90 miles per hour, Basilice said.

Faust says flooding isn’t a problem, either, because all of the construction material is water resistant.

The demonstration house is built one foot above the level of Katrina flooding in Lakeview. But if higher water invaded, “we’d use a pressure washer to get the mud out. Then we’d invite our neighbors over to spend the next six months.”

The group has pitched the house to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and housing authorities in South Africa, Iraq, Brazil, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and is aiming to obtain a big contract later this year. In the United States, Faust said, ready-to-go housing containers could be stored at various staging points in case of disasters. Mass production would require an order of over 1,000 units, he said.

The developers aren’t ready yet to say how much the house would cost. For the demo, about 60 companies provided materials, services and labor. But the design competition for the house, which Kinnard and Lin won, required that all the materials, including the energy and water system, come in at $100,000.

“It costs more upfront, but you’ll save in operating costs for energy, maintenance and insurance. The thinking is that it will pay for itself,” Dupont said.

Would anyone just want to have the house, disaster or not?

“It’s bright and airy,” said architect Kinnard. “It has pleasant lighting and good cross currents. There are a lot of people who would appreciate such a modern design.”

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This article says the house that the “demonstration house is built one foot above the level of Katrina flooding in Lakeview.” I drove by the house this morning and it is only about 1 foot off the GROUND. I would be surprised if the ROOF of the house is “one foot above the level of Katrina flooding in Lakeview.”

About the Project

The Sunshower SSIP model uses only readily available and standard building materials that fit into a single cargo container. The kit includes all the materials required to achieve a safe, healthy, comfortable and enduring level of building performance, while meeting all of its energy and water needs even in extreme environments. The REOSE containerized kit concept is an ideal solution for mass global housing needs and emergency disaster relief response; using a sincere approach to producing a practical, economical, and attainable option for the housing marketplace.

Original Design Rendering

Press Releases

The “Sunshower SSIP House” New Orleans’ model home designed by REOSE Sustainable Design Competition winners architects Judith Kinnard and Tiffany Lin opens demonstrating the latest in green design. A new era in green and durable construction will be unveiled in New Orleans on Wednesday, March 21st. The completion of this award-winning REOSE Sunshower SSIP model […]

New Orleans, LA – September 27, 2011 – An unprecedented demonstration of local business collaboration is taking place now in New Orleans. More than two dozen local construction professionals, design firms, vendors, and product specialists, led by Oceansafe, the The ReGen Group, Woodward Design+Build,, and C&G Construction have joined together to build the Sunshower SSIP […]

New Orleans’ Sustainable Home Model to Promote Green Materials, Appliances, Equipment, and Furnishings that can be packaged and shipped internationally. New Orleans, LA, August 9, 2011 – The construction of the Sunshower SSIP Models designed by architects Judith Kinnard and Tiffany Lin, winners of the 2010 REOSE Sustainable Design Competition, is underway in New Orleans. […]

Building Status Updates

Day 1 The Oceansafe SIPs are on site and with the help of C & G Construction we have begun to install the wood framing at 222 Harrison Ave. None of this would be possible without the pilings engineered by Steve Cali from Cali & LaPlace Engineers, LLC and we have Crescent Foundations to give a […]

Day 2 Installation by C & G Construction and Oceansafe of the treated lumber I-Joists and plywood subfloor will be completed today. Lumber Products, Snaveley Forest Products, and Trussway did a great job with our order and the foundation of our home is now sturdy and durable to build upon. We also started to lay […]

Day 3 Installation of Oceansafe’s Steel Structurally Insulated Wall Panels have begun to be erected with the help of a crew provided by C & G Construction and Oceansafe’s on site Quality Assurance Representatives. To find out more information on the Oceansafe Steel Structural Insulated Panel, check out the website at http://www.oceansafesteelsip.com.

Day 4 Panel installation is still in progress. The weather from the tropical storm is heading our way, and the wind is really kicking up. Stay tuned for the real time video footage of these panels being installed. Wall Panels Corner Panels being installed. Levelness is consistently checked throughout the build Right Side Wall being […]

Day 6 & 7 We have the majority of the walls set in place and we are preparing for the beam to be set on the walls by cutting our pitches for the front walls today. After meeting to confirm final calculations and details, this will allow us to move forward with greater efficiency. Once […]

Days 8 through 11 Below is a 3-D rendering of the roofline which will route the rainwater to a single spout location in the front of the house. The rendering should help you to get a good idea of what it is you are seeing in the construction photos. The beam is made of light […]

Day 12 – Roof Panels for Solar Array Installed This house provides two roof structures: one provides a vessel to channel rainwater into a water basin, which is the portion that has been installed, and the other reaches for the sun’s optimum rays. This solar roof serves as a large porch tilted to the appropriate angle to maximize the […]

Day 13 – Flashing metals for Roof Installed As previously mentioned the roof directs the water towards into the basin before directing the cleanest water to the Original Rainwater Pillow below. We’ve placed a light gauge steel track provided by Advanced Steel Homes on the valley portions of the main roof. These will be sealed later […]

Day 19-21 Plywood Skirting and Exterior Decking Completed Lumber Products has provided us with the plywood, lumber, and R-Wrap necessary to complete skirting and exterior decks of this model. These components contribute to the overall aesthetic design of the model.

Day 22 Window & Door Prep The window and door openings have been capped in the same light gauge steel track that the wall panels are set into. In order to give the windows the exterior look of a recessed window, the opening is then trimmed out in wood. Additional flashings and sealant tape are […]

Day 23 – 29 – Closed Wall Inspections & Finalizing MEP Details We have a few loose ends to tie up in regards to Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing systems. Once these details are completed, we will be ready for our closed wall inspections so that we can move forward with sheetrock and finishings.